


War Will Make Soldiers

by daftalchemist



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Steve is a great dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daftalchemist/pseuds/daftalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Carlsberg house is full of mysteries and unknowable truths, exactly the kinds of things Tamika needs for her army.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Will Make Soldiers

The signal is three knocks on the screen door, a two second pause, and a final knock. Though the hand that makes it is small, it resounds through the kitchen like flint striking gunpowder and catches Steve off guard, as it always does. There is no schedule for this ritual, no sun or moonsigns to let him know the time has come, though somehow it always manages to be within two weeks of the last; never any later.

Steve turns the stove to low, letting the stew simmer and thicken. It’s growing late in the year, late enough for the sun to grow cold and the night air to kiss the desert grasses with frost. A time when most stay inside, huddle around their radiators and air vents, bundled in sweaters, teeth chattering, clattering together like a rockslide. Dark things come out this late in the year, things unknowable even to Steve. When the sun dies and the winds grow chill, that’s the time to stay indoors, but not for everyone.

He wipes his hand on a towel, unlocking the kitchen door and bracing himself against the gust of wind that blows the door open, forcing a warm welcome to the dark shadow on his back doorstep.

She’s small, but powerful, and she smiles up at Steve with the sort of half-grin that only the truly confident can so comfortably wear. In her hand is clasped a leather strap that is tightly bound around a heavy looking stack of books.

“Tamika,” Steve murmurs, the visible puff of his breath carrying the words out into the dark.

“We’re done with these,” she says, her voice not nearly as cautiously low as Steve would prefer as she hands him the stack of books. “What else do you have?”

He has plenty, but he also has few. The mounds of books in his kitchen alone would be enough to thrill and anger any librarian, but Tamika’s army goes through them more quickly than he can supply them. It’s a wonder he can find them new books at all.

“There might be something new in the hall closet,” Steve comments almost absent-mindedly, too focused on checking the pitch black of the night for bright eyes and sharp ears before shutting the door firmly behind them.

Tamika knows her way around Steve’s house, perhaps even better than he does. How many months has she been coming here? Borrowing books, staying for dinner, discussing sensitive topics better left to minds strong enough to understand them. It’s late, but not too late; just dark outside and darker inside. The soft glow of the television illuminates the living room, muted static dancing over the couches and tables, over Janice and her homework. She looks up as Tamika walks past, smiling warmly.

“Hey again,” she says, instinctively closing her books around her pencil, though Tamika would never alert the secret police to its presence.

“How’s it going, Janice?” Tamika asks, returning the smile with something equally friendly. She can see the cover of her textbooks by the light of the television, and smiles wider. They’re not municipally approved.

Neither are the books in the hall closet.

When the leather strap has been emptied and refilled and Tamika’s stocky frame is weighed down once again with pound upon pound of forbidden words, she takes a seat at the kitchen table, shoving highlighted newspaper articles out of the way to make room for a piping hot bowl of homemade stew. Tamika doesn’t need the warmth, has never felt it necessary to don a coat before making her way through the darkness to the light of Steve’s home, but he asks her to eat it anyway, and she obliges. He’s a father; he can’t help but worry.

“Your wife is out,” she says; a statement, not a question. It’s her job to be aware of her surroundings, to protect those within it.

Steve nods, eyeing the papers and the books with a healthy amount of wariness. He knows to tread carefully with his knowledge, despite what others may think about him.

“Where is she?” Tamika asks, because knowing everything isn’t her job. It’s why she needs Steve, and why Steve needs her.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, smiling softly when Tamika raises an eyebrow at him. “She’s a mystery to me, something I’ve never known about.” He sighs again, happily this time. “It’s why I married her.”

Silence follows his words, fills the space heavy and thick. It’s a silence that makes him uneasy because he knows somewhere deep in his chest what will follow.

“Janice is getting pretty old now, isn’t she?” Tamika says, as though it’s a random musing, but the way she doesn’t look up from her bowl suggests this is no innocent train of thought.

“Almost thirteen,” Steve says hesitantly, the worry that had started to bloom low in his gut now gnawing its way up towards his increasingly racing heart.

Tamika nods. “She’s smart too.” She looks up from her bowl, eyes full of purpose. “I saw her ‘homework’, Steve. Did you assign that for her?”

Not even the warmth of the kitchen and the stew can dissipate the chill in his bones. “I… thought it would be best. She should learn early.” He can feel the sweat on his brow. “I can’t protect her forever.”

“We could use her,” Tamika says without hesitation, and Steve’s glad for it because it would be an insult to assume he didn’t already know what she was angling at. “I’m willing to bet she’s already read more books than most in my army.”

Steve can’t deny it, but he doesn’t want to confirm it either. He supports Tamika, helps her, and cares about her, but this is different. This is his little girl.

“Steve,” Tamika says, voice strong and forceful in a way that always catches Steve off guard. Everything about Tamika catches him off guard. “We need her.”

He shakes his head.

“You know I’m right.”

He can’t deny that either.

“Steve,” she says again, and her hand is holding his still, though he can’t remember when he’d started shaking. “You can’t protect her forever, but you know that I can.”

“You couldn’t even protect yourself!” he replies, surprising himself at how loudly he pounds his fist against the table. “I can’t… I can’t let that happen to her. She’s my daughter.”

Tamika’s lips press tight into a grim line, and fires blaze in her eyes. They’re the fires of a town burned to the ground, the torches of an army retreating, the roaring flames of a signal fire, the flames and devastation of war.

“You know where this is going,” she says, and her voice is as dark and dangerous as the night enveloping the house. “Where this will end. You’ve seen it; I know you have.”

He could never deny that. The knowledge makes his skin crawl, constricts him like clothes that had shrunk in the dryer. He takes a gasped breath, unaware that he had ever stopped breathing to begin with.

His arguments are futile because they’re only a delay. He’s seen it in the sky, written among the stars. It’s why he had given Janice the books, tutored her in the way the world was and the way it could be.

His defeat is sealed with a soft nod of his head and tears staining the newspapers below him. Mysteries woven between words, forming tapestries of truths that only he could see. He and Janice, because though she isn't truly his, she is his in more ways than anyone could ever understand. His vision is already blurred by the time he hears the soft screech of a chair sliding against tile, and a friendly voice drifting down the long, dark hall.

“Janice, can I talk to you for a moment?” Tamika begins.


End file.
